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The air was fragrant with the gentle scent of the early-blooming lotuses and fragrant roses that hung in garlands between the fluttering red drapes and curtains that adorned the entirety of Lotus Pier. Small clarity bells hung from the middle of each garland and end of each drape, filling the air with their soft, gentle chimes to accompany the fragrance of the flowers. The halls were alive and bustling with people, all of them dressed in their finest robes worn for special occasions and formal banquets. Even the servants had been given new robes and wore them proudly. The women had fresh flowers in their hair and the men had small bundles of jasmine flower buds on their robes over their left breasts, some pinned on with a pretty brooch and some simply sewn on. Jiang Cheng weaved through the chaos with practised ease, feeling slightly numb as his feet automatically took him to the private family quarters, which were also decorated in red. He stepped aside as a small group of giggling Jiang cousins and close disciples exited the pavilion leading to Wei Wuxian’s room. They bowed to him and he nodded back to them and waved them off, continuing to walk down the familiar wooden pathway until he reached the bridal pavilion. The curtains fluttered past his face as he quietly entered and took in the tastefully decorated room, seeing it clean and unmessy for probably the first time in his life. The bed had a red canopy on top of it, and for a moment, Jiang Cheng’s heart lurched as his eyes fell onto the red-clad figure sitting surprisingly docilely on the bed. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and quietly walked further in, never taking his eyes off the familiar red-clad figure. Jiang Cheng walked around the bed and his heart lurched at the sight of Wei Wuxian with his eyes closed and his head tipped slightly back, with a red fan in his hands in his lap as he waited for his bridal face paint to dry. He had always thought that Wei Wuxian looked his best when dressed in red. Looking at him now, dressed from head to toe in the finest fluttery red silks and softest cotton in all of Yunmeng and Gusu, he ached at how beautiful the man looked. Golden embroidery of lotuses, dragonflies, dragons, phoenixes and swans adorned the outer layers of the wedding robes his beautiful body was carefully wrapped in. As Jiang Cheng drank in the sight of him, all he could think was how unfair it all was. It should be him that Wei Wuxian was wearing red for. Him and no one else- regardless of who his groom was. And yet, here Wei Wuxian was, with his hair done up in an elaborate Yunmeng Jiang bridal style with a golden lotus crown and a real lotus tucked into the back of his hair, bridal makeup and lotuses painted along his forehead with tendrils trailing down the sides of his face. It was unconventional from the traditional giant lotus painted on the bride’s forehead in its entirety, without anything else added to it, but. Wei Wuxian was unconventional, in an unconventional marriage, marrying a man at that. An unconventional design suited him. Jiang Cheng still itched to paint on a larger lotus, as was customary- as Wei Wuxian, being the ‘bride’ in this union, deserved to be honoured with. His heart panged as he took it all in, committing this gorgeous sight to memory and lamenting that this was all for someone else and not him. Wei Wuxian shouldn’t look this breathtaking for anyone else but him, and it was not fair. He stepped closer, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes fluttered open, before brightening up as they took him in. “A-Cheng!” he said, trying to keep his face still and under control to avoid ruining any of his makeup or facepaint, yet the happiness still radiated from his eyes and filled Jiang Cheng’s chest up with warmth. “A-Xian. I see your makeup is already done,” he said, after having to swallow past a lump and clear his throat a bit. Wei Wuxian nodded excitedly. “They wouldn’t let me see it until it’s dry. But it’s also not complete yet, either- at least, that’s what Shijie said. She told me to stay here and she’d come back to finish it, but I think she got called aside by someone and got too distracted to finish it up,” he said with a soft chuckle and a twinkle in his eye. Jiang Cheng managed a smile. “She did get called aside, yes. But that's why she sent me in her place. What's left to do?" He asked. "Awww, Chengcheng~ Are you gonna paint the lotus on my forehead? Aww, what a caring shidi! I didn't know your art skills were that good!" Wei Wuxian teased, and Jiang Cheng huffed and rolled his eyes, grateful for some levity and banter to help restore him to equilibrium. Banter with Wei Wuxian was good. He could do that in his sleep. It was normal. It was them. He could do it. He swallowed again. "Brat," he huffed and rolled his eyes, lifting up his sleeves and reaching for the paintbrush on the bedside table with one hand while the other one caught onto Wei Wuxian's upturned chin and held his head still. There was a sharp inhale from him, and Jiang Cheng glanced at him from the corner of his eyes just in time to catch the surprised flutter of his eyelids. He focused back on carefully wiping the edge of the paintbrush after stirring it to re-mix the pigment, and then brought the brush to Wei Wuxian's face. "I may not be as good at drawing as you or A-Jie are, but I can draw a lotus as well as anybody around here can. Besides," he continued as he carefully began inking a large lotus on the mostly empty spot in the centre of his forehead, "A-Jie got to do your bridal makeup and my cousins got to do your face paint. It's only fair if I get to do something for you too." Wei Wuxian audibly swallowed as he looked up at his face, and Jiang Cheng resolutely focused on his painting and not anywhere else. The mental image of Wei Wuxian dressed in red, with his head tilted back docilely and his eyes wide and glossy and filled with warmth was going to haunt him forever, he just knew it. When he could no longer take being under that piercing, knowing gaze anymore, he pulled his brush back away from Wei Wuxian’s face as smoothly as he could, trying not to jolt his hand or let his voice tremble or betray any of his emotions. "Close your eyes. Let me work in peace without you staring at me like that," he said, voice breaking the soft silence in the room. He didn’t want to be too obvious. He couldn’t afford to be too obvious. Wei Wuxian had always been perceptive when it came to most things about him, and he desperately didn't want him to catch even the tiniest inkling of Jiang Cheng's true feelings for him- not now and not ever. Not on his wedding day. Not on the day that Jiang Cheng would have to walk him down the aisle and give him up to another man who was not him, to go and live for half a year in a sect that was not his, not theirs, not the sect that they’d grown up together in. He was certain, though, that Wei Wuxian didn’t know about his feelings towards him, thankfully. If there was one thing his soon-to-be-former Head Disciple did know, however, it was that Jiang Cheng was feeling something tender right now and was trying to hide it as he always did with such things. That was okay. Let him think what he wanted to think. Jiang Cheng had lost his chance a long time ago with every single moment that he had kept silent and kept his heart and feelings to himself. It was far too late now, anyway. Wei Wuxian obediently closed his eyes, though he didn’t close his mouth, and frankly, Jiang Cheng hadn’t been expecting him to, either. “Aww, what’s the matter, A-Cheng? Distracted by my beauty?” he teased, and Jiang Cheng desperately wanted to agree. “I’m trying to concentrate on making you look beautiful so your groom doesn’t get scared when he takes off your veil tonight, is all,” he said in retort, still holding the brush away from his face and tightening his grip on Wei Wuxian’s chin in anticipation. Wei Wuxian did, in fact, jerk his face as he tried to be his usual dramatic self in response to him, as he usually was. “A-Cheng! Are you saying I’m an ugly bride?!” he squawked in mock insult. “Not if you let me finish your makeup first,” Jiang Cheng teased, just because he could. Wei Wuxian gasped and reached out to swat at him, making him quickly pull back the brush and simultaneously try to dodge his swats. Both of them laughed, and Wei Wuxian visibly relaxed afterwards, unconsciously allowing Jiang Cheng to do the same. This was the last time the two of them would ever get to be like this, both single and unmarried and not belonging to anyone else but themselves; Jiang Cheng was carefully committing every single detail of this to memory even as his heart ached in his chest and a lump was quickly forming in his throat. He had to dip his brush again, and this time, when he drew it close to Wei Wuxian’s handsome face, a single drop of red paint fell onto Wei Wuxian’s lower lip. Jiang Cheng swallowed as he stared at that glistening red dot for a moment, watching it sit and glisten on Wei Wuxian’s perfectly plump red lips, like a drop of blood on a rose. Wei Wuxian’s eyes were lidded again, and if Jiang Cheng were more prone to wishful thinking, he might have thought that Wei Wuxian was staring at his lips in return. For a single, breathtaking moment in which the world abruptly didn’t exist around them and it was just the two of them as the only people left in the world, Jiang Cheng thought about how he very much wanted to kiss those lips, just once in his lifetime, and thought about licking off that spilt drop of paint from those gorgeous red rouge-covered lips. Jiang Cheng watched as Wei Wuxian parted his lips and the paint drop threatened to fall off his lower lip. “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian murmured, so softly that Jiang Cheng’s close proximity and his powerful core were all that allowed him to hear it. The moment broke. Jiang Cheng blinked, and then suddenly remembered where they were with a breathless crash of his heart. He swallowed and tightened his grip on Wei Wuxian’s face to hold him still as he took a step back and carefully put the brush back, reaching for the soft cloth used to fix, blot and wipe away past mistakes on his bridal makeup. His hands trembled slightly as he dabbed away the drop of paint, and it was a testament to his gentleness that he did not mess up the rouge beneath it. Or perhaps it was simply a miracle combined with Wei Wuxian’s uncharacteristic stillness. Well. Let it never be said that his head disciple couldn’t follow orders and sit still if he needed to. He just chose not to, the brat, Jiang Cheng thought fondly as a red lotus slowly appeared on his forehead under his careful, meticulous hand. “You look beautiful,” Jiang Cheng had murmured as he pulled back and looked at his handiwork, when it was all done and he could put his brush down for good, and then take the fan from Wei Wuxian to help the paint dry faster before it started dripping. Wei Wuxian tried to laugh it off as best as he could with Jiang Cheng holding his chin and face still and fanning him in the face, but his eyes were slightly more glistening than before, and he had to swallow and blink a few times, all of which Jiang Cheng politely pretended to ignore. “There. All done. Except for your veil. Once that goes on, you’ll be a proper YunmengJiang bride,” he said, tilting Wei Wuxian’s head this way or that to check if the paint was actually fully dry. “I… T-thank you, A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian stuttered, blushing slightly at being called beautiful so earnestly. “Not even the groom could look as stunning as any bride from Yunmeng, more so that it’s you,” he said, heart hammering in his chest and the lump growing rapidly in his throat. “Red has always suited you better, after all,” he continued, before swallowing a few times as he wrenched his eyes away from Wei Wuxian and rounded the bed to get to the veil laid out on the other side. He didn’t see what Wei Wuxian’s reaction was- didn’t even try to- and simply picked up the veil and brought it around to him. Before he put it on, he stopped for a moment and stood in front of Wei Wuxian, taking a moment to admire him while desperately committing every single detail of this moment to memory. Truthfully, the veil wasn’t needed. Both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were men, who did not need to wear veils. However, Wei Wuxian was marrying into the Lan family as the bride would, and he had teasingly told Lan Wangji at the negotiations that he’d show up to their wedding in a red veil, and Lan Wangji had simply agreed with him and told him how much he looked forward to it, and thus, Wei Wuxian had sealed his fate with it. It had been modified, of course, to be much shorter and more translucent than regular full-length bridal veils, allowing him to move more freely and be able to mostly see with it on. It had beautiful embroidery in golden thread of lotuses and swirls of water around them to match with his belt and robes. He, his sister and every single person on YunmengJiang who knew how to embroider decently enough for such an important job had embroidered a lotus on this veil, and Jiang Cheng told Wei Wuxian as such as he fastened it to the man’s bridal crown and carefully covered his beautiful face with it, hiding the true beauty of his makeup for no one else but his future husband to see. Wei Wuxian was pretending not to be too emotional even though his eyes were wet and he kept swallowing down the emotions, much like Jiang Cheng was doing currently. They really were so similar in many ways, even if they did not look or seem like it. The final step was to help him stand and then take the special Jiang Clarity Bell he had tucked away in his sleeve for safekeeping and reach forward to secure it onto Wei Wuxian’s belt, where it had always belonged and would continue to stay. Jiang Cheng had put in the contract himself, of course, that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t give up his clarity bell and would still be allowed to wear it whenever he wished to and wherever he went. YumengJiang was not giving him up like a bride, though he dressed like one and would perform the ceremonies like one. Jiang Cheng was not giving him up like a bride, either. He would be seeing him again after a few months had passed for the summer harvest and lotus festivals, anyway. “There,” Jiang Cheng murmured, barely able to get the words out around the emotions choking him deep in his throat, “All done. You’re ready now.” He heard Wei Wuxian take a deep breath, likely to steel his nerves, and their timing was impeccable because his sister stepped up into the room only a short moment later to announce that the groom had arrived. The wedding could officially begin. *** The rest of the day was a blur interspersed with a handful of crystal-clear moments that would forever be branded in Jiang Cheng’s brain. Lan Wangji had shown up to Wei Wuxian’s courtyard after having passed the rest of the customary challenges the sect and Jiang family had set up for him. The first glimpse of the groom who would take his beloved head disciple away he’s gotten was the man, dressed in red and gold from head to toe- including his forehead ribbon- striding determinedly across the pier to where Jiang Cheng was waiting with his sister and her table of food and the rest of their cousins with the man’s shoe carefully being hidden between them. Even with only a single shoe, his gait was even and confident, without any of the discomfort his shidis must have thought he would feel walking barefoot across the wood of the pier and when he got up close, Jiang Cheng took in how his robes had hints of Yunmeng mingled in with the clouds of Gusu in the embroidery too- a thing that took him completely by surprise; small golden lotuses and lotus leaves peeked out from behind and between the swirling clouds of Gusu, and Jiang Cheng could not take his eyes off the delicate embroidery. It was the kind of gesture that was as subtle of a declaration of love as the Lan were known to be. He doubted anyone else would notice unless they paid special attention to his robes. Although Jiang Cheng had been feeling like screaming and crying from the moment he’d woken up this morning, something in his heart settled ever-so-slightly at the sight of this. But of course it would. This was Lan Wangji, he remembered. The two of them had become friends in the guest lectures, and later on, allies in the Wen indoctrination camp. Lan Wangji was the reason Lotus Pier had survived a massacre and hadn’t been burned to ashes like most of Cloud Recesses had been. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were the reasons that the vast majority of the Lan library had survived. The Lan brothers had escaped with most of their library and fled to Yunmeng, where he and Wei Wuxian had hidden them both in a small, nearby water goddess temple disguised as monks. There was history between them. Jiang Cheng had fought alongside this man during the skirmishes that followed. They’d helped Wei Wuxian to sneak into Wen Ruohan’s palace and assassinate the man while Nie Mingjue had taken out his sons. They had won the war before it even began together, the three of them against the man who was the closest to immortality in their world. Wei Wuxian would be well loved by this man, and it only hurt even more. He couldn't even find fault with the man, either! Not when Wei Wuxian had been missing for three entire weeks and the two of them had searched high and low for him, finding him injured but with a crazy, harebrained idea to save the world that worked in the end. Lan Wangji was the only one in the world he could ever think of as worthy of being Wei Wuxian’s husband. It only hurt even more. As they had bowed for the ceremony and exchanged vows to each other, he couldn’t help but think about how perfectly suited to each other they were. Yin and Yang. Loud and quiet. Vibrant and steady. Dark and light. Both equally beautiful and equal in cultivation. He heard the aunties gossip and giggle to themselves about how men who had equal cultivation and were cultivation partners would often cultivate a baby together within the first year, as they took bets on which one would bear the child. Jiang Cheng’s heart ached, hard enough that it squeezed painfully in his chest. He swallowed past a lump in his throat and coughed gently, hearing the aunties giggle even as they shushed themselves and shot him amused glances. Probably, they thought he was embarrassed at the topic. They didn’t know how much worse they were making things for him. He and Wei Wuxian (and Lan Wangji, by extension) were equal in their cultivation too, something that many people seemed to forget since his ascension as Sect Leader. Now, he had the mental image of Wei Wuxian, round with a child- with his child, his and no one else’s, waddling around Lotus Pier while glowing from the inside as many pregnant disciples had in the past before they got too round to keep cultivating until their babies arrived. He cleared his throat and forcefully pushed the mental images out of his mind. He coughed again, and took a sip of his wine, and watched the happy couple eat their food and be interrupted many times by well-wishers as they enjoyed their banquet. Wei Wuxian was smiling radiantly and laughing beneath his veil, and it was clear that he was doing so even with the veil in place. Lan Wangji looked at him gently, with as besotted a look on his face as Jiang Cheng had seen on the day of the wedding negotiations. His heart ached as he watched Wei Wuxian turn to his new husband and cover his face with his hands beneath his veil, no doubt blushing furiously as he always did whenever Lan Wangji looked at him like this. It was sweet. He could not begrudge Wei Wuxian his happiness. Even if it was not with him. Even if it was with another man that he grudgingly accepted would be very good for him *** They would not be spending their night in Yunmeng. The rest of their ceremony was to take place in Gusu, where they would do a sacred forehead ribbon handfasting ceremony and all of the customs the bride and groom would do in private before consummating their marriage. Jiang Cheng didn’t want to think about it at all. He didn’t. He carefully pushed those thoughts out of his head as he hugged a teary Wei Wuxian goodbye as they stood at the Main Pier with the best boats Yunmeng Jiang had to offer, decorated fit for the heavens, in which to send the happy couple off to their new home in. His sister had cried over Wei Wuxian leaving, and cried again as Lan Wangji bowed to her and promised to bring him back to visit as often as she wished to see him and promised to look after him well. He was the last to say goodbye, and he tried his best not to cry. Wei Wuxian smelled like lotuses and spice and something unique to him that couldn’t be named. (Jiang Cheng would have called it the scent of home, were he the sentimental type, and also were he wanting to cry today, which he was not. Not voluntarily, anyway.) He hesitated with pulling the other man into his arms like he wanted to, lest he never let him go again. Wei Wuxian hesitated too, his hands hovering over Jiang Cheng’s hands, as if he wanted to grab his hands or lift them up to wrap him in a hug but didn’t know which one to do and froze midway. Jiang Cheng reached out and took his familiar, sword-calloused hands in his own, gathering his fingers up and holding them gently with his own. It was appropriate, and no one would suspect anything or complain about propriety- not here and now, on the day that Wei Wuxian was leaving his home and family and joining a new one. It was not a forever goodbye, he knew, but it sure left like it to his aching heart. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, unsure of what to say and unable to say anything even if he did. “Gonna miss me A-Cheng? You’ll finally have some peace and quiet around here for once- maybe you could even meditate and not be such a grumpy cat all the time!” Wei Wuxian teased, or tried his best to. His voice was thick with more tears still spilling over from crying into A-Jie’s hands, and Jiang Cheng swallowed again to push down the welling lump in his throat. “Of course. I’ll be able to put on my shoes again without needing to check for frog spawn or live tadpoles or river crabs or enter my office and not find it full of frogs again,” he managed out, making Wei Wuxian huff a smile. “Careful now, A-Cheng! I’ve instructed all the shidis and shimeis to continue on the tradition of doing just that! You’re not safe just because I’m not here to personally play pranks on you, you hear? Without me, you’ll become a grumpy old man and no one likes a grumpy old man!” he said, voice still wavering but not as thick and teary as before. Seems like teasing each other was a good way to bring both of them back to equilibrium, and Jiang Cheng was suddenly struck by how much he would miss this. “Oh, fuck it, come here you asshole,” he said, sighing as he pulled Wei Wuxian in with a jingle of the dangling jewels from his crown and a small surprised huff as he was enveloped in a bear hug. “Hey now, that’s a rude thing to say to the bride,” Wei Wuxian managed, even as his arms came around to clutch tightly at the back of Jiang Cheng’s robes. “You be good now, okay? Take care of yourself, and make sure you come back to visit, alright?” Jiang Cheng murmured to him.“Of course, A-Cheng. What kind of a shixiong would I be if I didn’t come back to visit?” he asked, clearly avoiding the first instruction.Jiang Cheng huffed and squeezed him in tighter, closing his eyes and savouring the last time he could do this. There was a hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and was met with Lan Wangji’s warm golden ones right in front of him. “You’ll look after him, won’t you? You’ll make sure he eats and doesn’t get lost in a daze of inventing and researching stuff, right? And that he sleeps well?” he asked, and Lan Wangji nodded with utmost solemnity. “I promise,” he said, meaning every word of it. Jiang Cheng’s heart hurt even more at seeing how sincere Lan Wangji was. He couldn’t even hate the guy now, he was a man who always kept his promises. Jiang Cheng was the one who would have to let go (and oh, how his heart railed against his rib cage at the mere thought of that-) “Lan Wangji,” he said, standing up straight and slowly letting his arms drop from around Wei Wuxian’s warm figure. “Promise me one more thing, and it is of utmost importance that you never ever break this promise even once in your life, okay?” he said, with as much seriousness as he had when ordering his troops to charge ahead in the war they’d fought. Lan Wangji straightened and nodded as gravely as he’d had when taking his orders from Jiang Cheng before he’d been given his own troops to lead. Wei Wuxian stepped back and looked seriously between the two of them. “Promise me that, if there ever is a dog in Wei Wuxian’s vicinity, you will always stand between it and him, and that you will always protect him against any dogs with your life if you have to.” Wei Wuxian and his sister gasped softly. Lan Wangji’s golden eyes widened. He already knew of Wei Wuxian’s phobia of dogs, and thus, knew the gravitas of him asking such a thing. “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian gasped, tugging at his sleeve, and Jiang Cheng refused to look at him in favour of watching Lan Wangji’s eyes widen, no doubt from the depth of what he was asking him to do- to be Wei Wuxian’s protector for the rest of his days. “I understand,” Lan Wangji said, bringing his hands up to give him a formal salute, bowing lower than he necessarily needed to. Jiang Cheng reached out and hastily caught his arms, stopping the bow from going any deeper and lifting him out of it. “Don’t bow so deeply to me like that, we’re family now,” he said gruffly, squeezing those muscular arms. Lan Wangji blinked a few times and nodded, his ears and cheeks reddening enough to be visible and his eyes becoming warm pools of molten gold. He looked soft. It was a good look on the otherwise cold, perfectly sculpted block of ice he usually was. (He was never going to let either of them know he’d ever had a thought like this in his entire life.) “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, voice full of emotion, and Jiang Cheng released Lan Wangji’s arms and turned to him to gently flick his forehead. “Hey! You’re gonna mess up my bridal facepaint like that, my shidi painted it for me!” Wei Wuxian joked on reflex. “Who’s your shidi, huh? I’m your Sect Leader now, aren't I?” he said, raising an eyebrow and pretending to be irritated, earning a huff of laughter from Wei Wuxian that he hid with a cough and clearing of his throat. “Yes, well, you’re gonna ruin all his hard work!” he said, sounding more cheerful now, though he could tell it was forced. “Yeah yeah, whatever. Just behave, don’t give poor Lan Qiren a heart attack with all your rule-breaking terribleness and be good, okay? Don’t make Lan Wangji here show up to give you back to us,” he said, then turned to Lan Wangji before continuing, “he doesn’t have a return policy, okay? Don’t you be returning him back to us, he’s your unruly gremlin now!” His sister giggled and gently chided him, Wei Wuxian put his hands over his heart in an exaggeratedly hurt way and the corner of Lan Wangji’s mouth turned up just enough to remind him of the moment that only he had witnessed, of Lan Wangji smiling at one of Wei Wuxian’s ridiculous antics on their date he had chaperoned at the start of their courting period. “Yes,” he said, turning to look besottedly at Wei Wuxian. “He is mine now. And he will continue to be mine forever,” he said, making Wei Wuxian squeak and go as red as his robes were, which was visible even through his veil- and that was before he had peeled Wei Wuxian’s hand off his chest and brought it to his lips to press a soft kiss to it. Jiang Cheng abruptly felt like he wanted to scream or turn around and throw up. He forced himself to swallow everything down again. “Alright,” he heard himself saying.“You should head off now, or else you’ll be late for the rest of the ceremonies in Gusu,” he said. Lan Wangji nodded at him gratefully, and the two of them boarded the boat. Both of them turned around to wave and bow at him and his sister and the rest of his family there before they turned back around and didn’t look back. Jiang Cheng wanted to stand there and watch until they became a speck on the river, to watch as his heart left his home forever in the arms of Lan Wangji, but he forced himself to swallow back his longing and grief and love and tears- the other boats set off, then, to follow them back to Gusu, and they obscured Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s boat enough to allow him to turn to the side and press his dry handkerchief into his gently crying sister’s hands instead. He wrapped his arm around her and wordlessly turned them around, following after their cousins as they all headed inside to continue the festivities. All he wanted to do was to grab some Emperor’s Smile the Lans had brought and go sit on his private pavilion and drink until his heart stopped aching and weighing him down like lead in his chest. His throat hurt with the weight of having to keep the lump of his tears in check, lest he start crying in front of all the guests and ruin everything. At least he had his sister by his side, who knew of the depth of his feelings, and would later on wipe away his tears as they sat side by side in his pavilion after the festivities had finally wrapped up. He waited until she was gone to sob, and sobbed until he coughed, and coughed until he felt nauseous. He chugged the rest of the liquor and stumbled to his room, mercifully passing out before he had the opportunity to think about this some more and cry again. This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It had been six months so far. Six months since he’d sent the heart of Lotus Pier off to Gusu wrapped in red silks and golden jewels. Six months of silence without Wei Wuxian’s cheery laughter floating through the air like birdsong on the breeze. Six months without Wei Wuxian randomly running away on the piers to either cause or get away from the chaos he’d just caused. Six months without him entering his office just to catch Wei Wuxian unloading frogs from a bucket into his office before cackling and jumping off the back entrance to Jiang Cheng’s small personal pier and pavilion into the lotus pond and swimming away before Jiang Cheng could catch him. Six months without him finding his waterproof shoes filled with tadpoles or small fish or worse- small crabs that hid deep in his shoes and pinched his toes if he didn’t check them thoroughly enough. Six months without him yelling ”Wei Wuxian!” at the top of his voice and chasing the beautiful man across the piers, looking for the flutters of the red ribbon in the wind as Wei Wuxian took sharp corners and dangerous jumps off the roofs to escape him. It felt like he had chased and chased that fluttering red ribbon for so long and failed to catch it every time, and now it was gone from his grasp forever. Don’t think that, that beautiful fucker’s still alive and can come back to visit any time, and when he does I’ll get to chase him around the piers again, he thought to himself through gritted teeth as he reflexively checked his boots for any critters that either crawled in there on their own or would have been put there by a person who longer lived here. (Sometimes, he swore he saw the fluttering of a red ribbon out of the corner of his eye when he walked past one of the corners Wei Wuxian had darted around during their high-speed chases across the piers of their home. He had to teach himself not to do a double take and to swallow down Wei Wuxian’s name from the tip of his tongue each time.) Six months was a long time. It felt like both an eternity to Jiang Cheng, and yet nowhere near long enough. He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d survive going from seeing Wei Wuxian every day to only seeing him once every few months or so. It had been the most fortuitous thing in the world, then, that Jin Zixuan had approached him after Wei Wuxian’s wedding to negotiate a courtship with his sister. Although he didn’t approve of the man nor forgive him for all the hurt he’d caused his sister in the past, he already knew the outcome based on his sister’s feelings for the man. And so, after the very first month of their courtship, he pre-emptively went to all of the matchmakers in Yunmeng himself to pick out the very best one for them. He got started on ordering as many wedding-red bolts of various fabrics from various merchants, knowing how long it would take them to get everything organised. He already had the designs for his sister’s bridal jewellery that the three of them had come up with for her as children helping her to plan out her dream wedding, and so he started putting in orders with the metal smiths and artisans to get her jewellery commissioned in advance. Jiang Yanli both preferred and adored pearls more than diamonds or gemstones, and so he began placing large orders of the finest pearls from Gusu to be used in her jewellery, robes and hair. He made estimates for the cost of all the flowers and sent in orders to stock up the various extra storage rooms with all the necessities for a wedding- cured and pickled foods and meats, spices, lantern oil to once again light Lotus Pier up with strings of lanterns, red paper and fabric to decorate the piers and buildings with. All of this bustle coming from Lotus Pier so soon after one wedding had taken place was bound to attract attention, and he had been told by Nie Huaisang’s letters that the entire cultivation world thought that he was the one to get married next, since he had insisted upon Jin Zixuan courting his sister for a year as the bare minimum. But he was a sect leader; a young one at that, and more importantly, one without an heir, and so it would be important for him to get any wedding preparations done as quickly as possible so that he could marry already and secure an heir. It was ridiculous. He’d read that part of the letter out loud to his sister during a family meal and she had giggled and shook her head in exasperation. “He does have a point, though. Why are you in such a rush to get as much of this done now when we have half a year of courtship still to go and then as much time as needed afterwards to prepare for the wedding?” she asked, and he had abruptly sobered up and coughed at the unexpected question, before downing his lotus wine to try and clear up his throat. “A-Jie… I just…” he said, at a loss for words, and his kind, wonderful, brilliant sister had merely looked at him with knowing, sad eyes and placed her hand gently over his. “Don’t overwork yourself, A-Cheng. Please. I won’t begrudge you your distraction, but please look after yourself too,” was all she said, and they continued that meal in silence. Wei Wuxian only wrote letters now, and mostly to his sister at that, and all of them were enquiring about the wedding preparations and talking about how much he loved marital bliss. Jiang Cheng missed him so much it ached. He should be here, alongside him, helping to negotiate and organise A-Jie’s wedding to perfection, just as they had planned. There was time, as she had said, but Jiang Cheng wished that Wei Wuxian would come to visit them more often. He had made just one, single visit, on the same day that Jiang Cheng had been roped into helping with measuring the sizing of men’s wedding robes, since the merchant had wished to show off the new fabric he’d brought and yet was too shy to actually drape it on his sister. Wei Wuxian had walked in on his sister and the merchant in a deep conversation about the fabric and colour while Jiang Cheng had stood there with a bunch of red fabric draped over him and tried his best to keep up with their conversation. “Well well well, what do we have here?” he had interrupted them, and his sister had beamed and hugged him hello before pulling him along and asking him what he thought of it. Wei Wuxian had looked at him up and down, clearly admiring the fabric and how it looked draped over a body, and then gave some very helpful suggestions for potential pairings and other colours or different shades to go with it. Jiang Cheng was immensely grateful for the help, and it was only much later on that he realised that Wei Wuxian had avoided eye contact and also physical contact with him afterwards. Perhaps he was still upset with him for allowing A-Jie and Jin Zixuan to court each other again? Wei Wuxian didn’t visit again for the next four months after that. Jiang Cheng threw himself into more wedding preparations to avoid having the beautiful man haunt his every thought. There was news of a nighthunt gone wrong in Gusu, resulting in a member of GusuLan being injured. Jiang Cheng paced up and down his personal pier in worry, hoping it hadn’t been Wei Wuxian- and by extension, Lan Wangji- who had been on that night hunt or injured. When he finally collapsed onto his bed in utter exhaustion that night, he dreamed of chasing a red ribbon amongst a field of lotuses where the mud was slowly sucking him in with every step he took. He woke up gasping and clutching his chest, feeling grief and desperation to catch that ribbon before any harm came to its owner so strongly he started to cough and had to stumble out of bed and soothe his throat with an entire pitcher of water. Wei Wuxian is still alive and well. It was just a bad dream, okay? Stop worrying about him, Lan Wangji promised me he’d look after that idiot of mine for me, he thought as he sat there on the floor, staring numbly at a bucket in front of him. Then why hasn’t he come back to visit like he said he would? And why do I keep hearing rumours about his health? A tiny voice at the back of his head spoke up, insidiously infecting his brain with that single thought. Jiang Cheng couldn’t get rid of it. It was true. It had been the Gusu Pearl Merchants who brought the rumours at first, and completely unintentionally too. They’d been discussing it amongst their fellow merchants and workers, and given how they knew him, Wei Wuxian and the Jiang disciples who’d helped with Wei Wuxian’s wedding, it was natural that the merchants and their workers would share news about the same man they all had grown to care about. Wei Wuxian was frequently sick. He would cough a lot, or would suddenly need to drink a sip of water and clear his throat in the middle of talking. (He had repurposed an Emperor’s Smile bottle that he now used to fill water or tea in, just for the chaos of terrorising the Lan disciples and elders into thinking he was drinking in the Cloud Recesses only to find that it was water or tea instead, which made Jiang Cheng chuckle. Of course Wei Wuxian would do that, it was such a him thing to do.) Over the months, it had escalated to Wei Wuxian coughing into a handkerchief and hiding the contents- Jiang Cheng’s heart had skipped a beat, until he had been reassured: none of the merchants had seen blood on the handkerchief, thankfully. Wei Wuxian was still spotted holding and using Suibian with ease, even sparring with and flying with it, and he wouldn’t be able to if there was something wrong with his core to make him qi deviate or spit blood like that. He could have been injured in that nighthunt, sure, but Jiang Cheng had heard from Nie Huaisang that it had actually been the Lan juniors who had been there instead. The rumours escalated. Pretty soon, the merchants spoke of how Wei Wuxian hardly came down to Caiyi Town at all, and when he did he’d stopped flying down on his own and instead rode with Lan Wangji. He shook and trembled and looked pale when he did show up, and he hardly spoke at all. He kept his hand tucked into his husband’s, who was always close by, and was frequently out of breath and needing to sit down between coughing fits. A few times, a group of the merchants had seen him hunch over and throw up behind a large bush or other nearby vegetation. He seemed much better after, and even devoured several spicy skewers from one of the neighbouring food stalls. This led to another new set of rumours about him, ones that had set Jiang Cheng’s heart ablaze: That Wei Wuxian was pregnant and was merely experiencing severe pregnancy sickness. It was said to be worst in the early months, after all. Jiang Cheng’s heart had stopped when he’d accompanied his sister to the marketplace and heard the merchant’s wife gossiping about it with her friend while she sorted through the pearls. The mental image of Wei Wuxian, round with a child and glowing with the happiness of motherhood made his heart ache. If it were true- and he suspected it was, because this was Wei Wuxian they were talking about and of course he would attempt the impossible and go and get himself pregnant like this- then… Jiang Cheng had never wished more for Wei Wuxian to stay here and be round and happy with his child instead of Lan Wangji’s. Nevermind that Lan Wangji was the only man he knew and trusted with Wei Wuxian’s well-being and happiness. Nevermind that they looked so good together and were so evenly well-matched. Never mind that Lan Wangji was an honourable and righteous man and had only ever proven to be such, especially towards Wei Wuxian. It should be him carrying Wei Wuxian down to the market on his sword because Wei Wuxian was pregnant with his child, not Lan Wangji’s. He promised himself he wouldn’t hate the man for taking Wei Wuxian away from Lotus Pier like that, because he made Wei Wuxian so happy and he was genuinely a good and decent man and the only one who was actually worthy of Wei Wuxian’s love and care and admiration, but still. If the rumours were true, he wanted to break the man’s legs. He tried not to choke on the surge of emotions he felt when he heard the next rumour, that Wei Wuxian had gotten dizzy and fainted and had been swept into his husband’s arms and whisked off back to the Cloud Recesses, right after he’d thrown up the fish he’d had into the bushes nearby. Even his sister had commented that dizziness was common during pregnancy, further solidifying that rumour in his mind. It hurt, even as he knew that Wei Wuxian loved children and loved to play with them and would be an amazing father to his own child. Jiang Cheng had to excuse himself from his sister’s side and run through the back alleys, sprinting as fast as he could before falling to his knees, alone and desperately, terribly upset in front of several lotus fields that were devoid of workers or any other person to see him in such a state. It took a long time of careful, controlled deep breathing before the emotions stopped trying to claw their way out of his chest before getting stuck in his throat as they always did. If only he’d been braver, sooner, and had confessed earlier. If only Wei Wuxian could have ever truly been his. If only he didn’t need to keep his love locked down and hidden like this. *** The summer lotus harvest was happening soon, along with the Harvest and Lotus Festivals, and Wei Wuxian had promised to return and stay here for the month leading up to, during and after the festivals, as per the terms of the wedding contract they’d agreed on. The final mockups for Yanli’s dress would be decided between the three of them when he came for the festivals- and yes, Jiang Cheng had paid extra for the mockups- though, they could be reused as patterns or show pieces or even sewn into actual dresses and given to other brides who couldn’t afford a custom made one. For now, he could order everything needed and get the base layers of the dress and robes sewn. It was enough to keep him occupied enough to stop worrying so frantically about Wei Wuxian’s health. Was he sick or not? Was he pregnant or not? Was he both of those simultaneously or not? Was it a cultivation sickness? Was it a curse from a nighthunt? It didn’t matter, he told himself firmly, for he was far too busy building a larger pavilion off the side of Lotus Cove for the wedding to take place there, as his sister had once fantasized about, with beams instead of a roof so they could drape garlands of flowers all over it and make the roof itself out of flowers, to give any more time and energy worrying about Wei Wuxian for no good reason. Having a roof made of flowers to be married beneath was her dream, and he was more than happy to make it happen for her and give such a project the full attention it deserved. He was hard at work, and his sister was looking more and more like the world’s most beautiful blushing maiden in love as Jin Zixuan came to take her out on dates at least twice every month- though he had increased that to once a week as summer ripened- and it all was finally coming together at long last, when of course, everything went to shit. *** It was as the pavilion was finally completed and he and Yanli were standing beneath the skeleton roof, her twirling around and admiring the space while disciples carefully transferred and planted lotus plants around the pavilion, that his newest Head Disciple and cousin rushed in followed by a windswept Lan Wangji. “Please, I need your help,” Lan Wangji said, as soon as the disciple announced them. “It’s about Wei Wuxian,” he added, making his sister clutch his hand in worry as he swallowed and wordlessly gestured for the disciple to lead them to the throne hall, his heart hammering in his chest the entire way, and only his sister’s death grip on his wrist keeping him from losing himself in the spiral of worry and anxiety that was beginning to take shape in his mind. “Wei Wuxian has Hanahaki disease,” Lan Wangji said quietly, after he’d been given some refreshing lotus tea and everyone except him and his sister had left the room. Jiang Cheng’s breath left his lungs and he felt a little bit dizzy. His sister gasped, put down her cup and reached out for Lan Wangji’s hand. He allowed her to hold his hand in comfort with a gentle bow to her. “I am not upset, he explained, “I mostly just wish to find out who it is so we can help him before the disease gets any worse.” “How bad is it?” he found himself asking through the haze.“He struggles to breathe and now has been prescribed bedrest at all times to give him a chance to rest his body,” he said.“For it to be that bad already, he must have secretly had this entire time and loved the person for a long time,” Jiang Cheng thought out loud, frowning as he went through his memories, looking for any signs of Wei Wuxian having any form of sickness at all, let alone coughing more. “It only happened recently. I’m not sure what or why, but he suddenly started getting sick when previously, he would simply cough up a petal or two when his emotions overwhelmed him,” Lan Wangji stated. “He would do that?” he asked, flabbergasted. “Mn,” Lan Wangji said, nodding. “I’ve never seen him do that in Lotus Pier ever,” he said, still shocked. “It only started after we got married,” Lan Wangji said, and it was only because he was looking into the man’s golden eyes that he saw the flash of pain in them. “I’m sorry,” he said, empathising with the man and also being pissed off at Wei Wuxian simultaneously. Hadn’t Wei Wuxian been in love with his precious ‘Lan-er-gege’ for a long time now? Hadn’t Lan Wangji proved his devotion to him over and over again, only for him to be hurt like this, and after they were married too? Lan Wangji didn’t deserve this any more than Wei Wuxian would, if their situations were reversed. But… he also knew that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have done this maliciously, nor would he have done anything to hurt Lan Wangji willingly. Wei Wuxian wasn’t the type of person to do that to people he cared about. And he cared about Lan Wangji a great deal, enough to marry him. And yet, the person he’d been secretly pining over and his love for them was too much for him, that even after marrying someone else, it reared its head and now was going to potentially ruin Wei Wuxian’s marriage and his greatest shot at happiness. It all just wasn’t fair. Lan Wangji inclined his head in acknowledgement, though now saying anything else. “That is terrible news, Lan Wangji. There must be some way we can help you?” Yanli asked, squeezing his hand, looking the same mixture of upset and sorrowful that he felt. “The person he’s pining for is from Lotus Pier, but he refuses to say who. If we could find the person, we could help him to confess to them. Even if nothing comes out of it, the confession will release the emotions and let the flowers die off so he can breathe again,” Lan Wangji said. Jiang Cheng’s breath caught. Wei Wuxian was in love with someone from Lotus Pier. This whole time he’d secretly been in love with someone he might’ve seen and interacted with every single day, and it had escaped Jiang Cheng’s notice. Did his sister know about it? Did anyone else? He was the closest person to him, how did he not even figure out something as simple as Wei Wuxian being in love with someone enough to cause him Hanahaki disease even after he’d gotten married of all things? “How do you know that the person is from Lotus Pier?” his sister was asking Lan Wangji. “The petals he coughs up are large lotus petals,” Lan Wangji answered. Both her and Jiang Cheng’s breath caught. Lotus petals were large, and so were lotus flowers and their tubers that would eventually grow into thick lotus roots. Of all the flowers to get Hanahaki with, lotuses were the single most aggressive, painful and terrifying ones to be afflicted with. Their real danger came from how large their buds and flowers were. Even a small lotus bud was bigger than a person’s throat, and if the bud itself somehow managed to not completely block their airway, then when the bud bloomed, it certainly would. To think that Wei Wuixan had been suffering like this for six months… Jiang Cheng had to excuse himself to try and avoid choking past the lump in his throat at his utter failure over something as simple as not knowing that Wei Wuxian was even pining over someone like this. At Wei Wuxian willingly marrying Lan Wangji just to put himself- to both both of them- through this pain later on. At the injustice of this all. At the flash of pain in Lan Wangji’s eyes. At Wei Wuxian probably hiding his feelings and hoping that getting married to someone he loved would kill off the emotion and flowers growing in his chest- that had to have been the only reason he got married despite also being in love with someone else to the point of coughing up petals because of the depth of his emotions for them. And it had failed to work, regardless of the love he truly felt for Lan Wangji. Fuck. He wanted to cry. He remembered the look in Lan Wangji’s eyes too when he’d abruptly stood up and excused himself, and suddenly wondered if Lan Wangji had ever cried over Wei Wuxian before or if this was the first time for him to do such a thing. *** It was evening when his sister found him standing against the balcony of the west pier, watching the sunset fill the sky with a dramatic red that would be more suited to the battlefield than a beautiful evening like tonight. Then again, his heart felt like a battlefield currently, so perhaps the drama of the sun was accurate to his heart, especially considering his heart was only in such a state because the sunshine of his life was currently sick in Gusu and he’d failed to even notice anything amiss. “It’s not your fault, A-Cheng,” his sister said, softly, brushing his clenched fist with her gentle fingertips.“How could I not even notice he was in love with someone to this point? And he even got married too! To someone else who’s not this person! How could I have been so blind to not notice this, A-Jie?” he said, throat raw and sore as he blinked back a fresh new wave of tears. She gently nudged his shoulder until he sighed and turned to face her. “A-Cheng, it’s not your fault if A-Xian had a secret love that he wanted to keep hidden. It’s not your fault he didn’t tell you about it, either. A-Xian is good at hiding the things that he wants to hide. And besides, you’re Sect Leader now. You’ve been busy, as is expected of you, and while it’s good to care for him, you have the entire Jiang Sect to care for as well. Don’t blame yourself for this, A-Cheng,” she said, holding onto both of his upper arms and gently squeezing. He sighed, still feeling upset but unsure of how to articulate it- he wasn’t only upset at himself, but on Lan Wangji’s behalf too, even if he knew that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been intending to hurt him intentionally like this- it hadn’t changed the fact that he had. “I let him get married to someone whom he doesn’t have Hanahaki for,” he said instead, because that was also a good point to make. “You didn’t let him get married to such a person, A-Cheng. You only let him choose whom to get married to, just as father had let me choose who to get married to, just as we both would let you choose whom you want to get married to in the future. You gave him a choice, A-Cheng, and he chose Lan Wangji. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault here. There’s no fault when it comes to love,” she said, and Jiang Cheng looked down, feeling chastised. “Come eat with us. Lan Wangji wants to leave tomorrow, and one of us should go with him to help him figure out who it is and coax A-Xian into telling us,” she said, giving his shoulders another squeeze before patting his arm with one hand and turning around to head to the Jiang family’s private pavilion where they always sat to eat supper. *** “How do you stand it?” he asked Lan Wangji, as he approached the balcony of the pavilion the man had been standing at, looking out at the lotus buds and rustling leaves in the gentle breeze. Lan Wangji tilted his head to look at Jiang Cheng in question, his back straight as usual while Jiang Cheng gently leaned on his elbows against the railing next to him. The curve of his neck was elegant as always, and Jiang Cheng found himself thinking about how he was always so elegant and gentlemanly even in the midst of his heart being broken like this. “That he has Hanahaki for someone other than you even though you’re married to him,” Jiang Cheng clarified. Lan Wangji looked away and swallowed, staring out into the distance. “Wei Ying’s heart has always been too big for his love to be confined to a single person,” he said. “And you only love a single person and that is him, because Lans only love once, correct?” Jiang Cheng asked, recognising a non-answer when he heard one and trying to understand what he was really feeling. “Not true,” Lan Wangji murmured, and Jiang Cheng turned to him. “Only some Lans love once. Some can and do love again if given the chance to. Some can love many people at once, even,” he explained without looking at Jiang Cheng. “But not you,” Jiang Cheng stated. “I have loved Wei Ying from the first moment I ever met him, when we fought across the rooftops of Cloud Recesses over the Emperor’s Smile he was trying to smuggle in,” Lan Wangji said, swallowing for a moment before he turned to face Jiang Cheng. “I love him so much. I love him more than the sun itself. He is the sun of my life. Even if he loves someone else to that extent, pining after them enough to cough petals that will kill him, it will never change the fact that I love him. Or the fact that I promised you I would do everything in my power to look after him,” he said, pain and determination and desperation all mingling in his watery eyes, and Jiang Cheng was proud of being able to decipher the emotions in his eyes when he wouldn’t have been able to many years ago, before they’d fought and bonded together as they have. “You deserve to be loved as wholeheartedly as you love him, too,” Jiang Cheng found himself saying as he swallowed back his emotions and blinked back his tears. Lan Wangji looked surprised and taken aback, judging by his blinks. Jiang Cheng snorted. “Just because that idiot is precious to me-” he began. (And. And this was the most he would ever allow himself to say in front of anyone, and only because “precious” was neutral enough while also being absolutely true, and could be construed to meaning anything- his sister was precious to him, as was the tiny toad that always climbed up to rest on his pier between the pot of chrysanthemums his sister had given him for tea and the wall of his room every so often, such that he took to “accidentally” spilling water over the sides of the pot to ensure that it remained moist in its hiding spot. No one could possibly tell the depth or type of feelings he had from this alone.) “-does not mean that I am heartless enough to not acknowledge the hurt this is causing you,” Jiang Cheng continued, pushing his thoughts aside. Lan Wangji looked touched, and Jiang Cheng swallowed and fought the urge to blurt out something random or an insult the way he would have if he were talking to Wei Wuxian. Luckily for him, Lan Wangji spoke instead. “Thank you, Jiang Wanyin,” he said, hesitating on what to call him for a moment. “Cheng. Jiang Cheng. You’re married to Wei Wuxian, and are my-” what were they, really? Find-Wei-Wuxian buddies? That wasn’t a thing. Acquaintances? Too distant. Friends? Possibly hopefully “-friend too. You can call me by my birth name. I prefer it, anyway,” he said. Lan Wangji paused and Jiang Cheng swore he became warmer in the man’s presence, even if nothing on the outside changed, except for the tiniest lift of the man’s beautiful lips. “Jiang Cheng,” Lan Wangji said, then, inclining his head in acceptance, and Jiang Cheng felt warm to the core. They stood there for a moment, both looking out into the dark night as the breeze rustled the lotus leaves and the frogs and crickets started chirping. “Wei Ying refuses to get it removed, even though it will kill him if it continues,” Lan Wangji said in the surprisingly comfortable silence between them. “He wants to remember the person and his love for them,” Jiang Cheng stated. “Mn. He won’t tell me who it is either, though.” Jiang Cheng breathed deeply and swallowed down his anger. “So burn it, then.” Lan Wangji turned to him in confusion. “Burn the flowers in his lungs, then. They’ll grow back after they’ve been burnt, but he’ll be able to both breathe and also remember the person he’s in love with.” Lan Wangji looked shocked. “With qi, I mean. Not physically set them on fire, that’s set him on fire too, and that’s the last thing anyone wants,” he clarified, trying to add on a joke at the end and feeling uncomfortable with the look he was receiving from the other man. “...that’s possible?” Lan Wangji asked, hushedly. “Yes. It’s the same way you burn poison out of your body, or qi if it’s a spiritual poison,” Jiang Cheng said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “How is that possible? Most poisons have to be neutralised or drawn out, or the golden core will burn them out automatically, but that can’t work with anything else other than poison. The flowers of Hanahaki cannot be burned out by one’s core or else a cultivator as strong as Wei Ying would have burned it already,” Lan Wangji said. “Can’t it?” Jiang Cheng asked, remembering red flames against white sleeves and how a hot rush of qi that burned worse than the poison had flooded his meridians and body, leaving him gasping for air and yet leaving no trace of the poison left anywhere in his body. “How do you know of this?” Lan Wnagji asked, drawing him out of his thoughts to find the man had moved closer and was a hairsbreadth away from him. Before he could react, Lan Wangji gripped his elbows and looked at him with a pleading look on his face. “Jiang Cheng. Please. How do you know this and will it work?” he asked, and Jiang Cheng swallowed as he looked at the desperation in those beautiful golden eyes. “Wen Qing,” he found himself saying. “When Lotus Pier was attacked by the Wens, after my parents had died taking out most of the army they’d sent to us, Wei Wuxian, my sister and I were sent away to hide with some of our disciples until the worst was over. Wei Wuxian snuck out to get my sister some medicine and I followed him. The Wen guards were about to catch him but I distracted them, and when they were chasing me, one of them hit me with a poisoned arrow. Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian found me before the Wen guards did, and they took us to Yiling to get treatment from his sister, Doctor Wen Qing. She burned the poison out of me with her qi and fire cultivation, since it was too late to make the antidote and expect it to work. She taught me how to do that too. She also said it should work for getting rid of most things, like resentment poisoning in qi and Hanahaki in one’s lungs, though it would only burn the flowers,” he said, watching Lan Wangji’s eyes widen as they were becoming more and more hopeful as he spoke. In the hushed silence that followed, a plan became crystal clear to both of them simultaneously. “Go to Wen Qing. She’s the best healer in the world, isn’t she? Go get her and her brother from Yiling or Mount Dafan and bring her to Gusu, she’ll be able to help,” he said in an urgent rush as he gripped Lan Wangji’s elbows in return. “You can do it too,” Lan Wangji said in a clipped tone that meant he was speaking urgently, and if Jiang Cheng hadn’t been holding onto his elbows, he suddenly suspected that he might have flown off then and there from the pier itself. “I’ll go to Gusu tomorrow then, and you can bring Wen Qing. If Wei Wuxian won’t tell me who it is, then I’ll convince him to let me try and burn the flowers out,” he said. “Jiang Cheng,” Lan Wangji breathed out in a breathless rush. “It’ll work. I’ll speak to him alone. He might let me do it,” he said, equally breathless with the sudden hope that filled his body. “Jiang Cheng,” Lan Wangji said again, in a voice that sounded overwhelmed with emotions, and Jiang Cheng didn’t need to know him to be able to hear the ‘thank you’ in his tone too. “We’ll save him,” he found himself saying with conviction. “He’s our reckless, unruly idiot and we’ll save him,” Jiang Cheng said, to reassure both of them, and was pleasantly surprised at the wet huff of almost-laughter from Lan Wangji. This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jiang Cheng didn’t know what to expect when he arrived at Gusu with Lan Wangji’s spare entrance token and was ushered straight to the Jingshi without a single word, but this wasn’t it. The man in front of him would have been unrecognisable as Wei Wuxian if it weren’t for the fact that he had the same face as him. His cheeks were sunken in, his limbs were frail and thin, his hands had started shaking if he did something with them for too long and the bags beneath his eyes were darker than they’d ever been in his entire life. He smiled, pleasantly surprised and a little bit panicked to see Jiang Cheng suddenly arriving unannounced like that. It made sense, Wei Wuxian was not the type to want anyone to see him suffering or when he was at his worst. Jiang Cheng sat on the chair provided next to his bedside and answered the limited questions he was allowed to answer and spoke about the state of Lotus Pier to him until his eyes started to droop. “Sleep, A-Xian. Your husband will be back soon, he sent me ahead so you wouldn’t be lonely,” he lied to him, even though it was forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, because Wei Wuxian would get upset if he opened up by wanting to burn the flowers and might not even listen to his explanation, and then he’d send Wen Qing away before even listening to her when Lan Wangji brought her here. As Wei Wuxian slept, Jiang Cheng kept vigil over him while holding his hand and surreptitiously passing him some qi to strengthen his core, and although it was terrible hearing him labour for breath like this, it at least meant that he was alive enough to breathe in the first place. Wei Wuxian awoke shortly after he fell asleep and started coughing. Jiang Cheng was by his side with a bucket immediately, and helped him to sit up and rubbed his back as he laboured through vomiting out an unusually large number of petals. “A-Cheng,” he said, after Jiang Cheng gave him a cloth to wipe his mouth and put the bucket on the floor within his reach. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” he gasped out, his voice rougher and hoarser than it was before. Jiang Cheng shook his head. “Don’t be. We’ve literally grown up together, haven’t we? What’s left between us for us to see of each other? We’ve literally bathed together during the war. You held my hair back every time I’d get too drunk. This is nothing,” he said, reaching out to take Wei Wuxian’s hand in both his own and hold them securely, passing them qi to warm them up. Wei Wuxian sighed but didn’t say anything and sagged back against the mountain of pillows he was tucked back against, likely too tired to say anything in return. Jiang Cheng didn’t think his heart could break any more than it already had, but. Well. This was a new for him. He cleared his throat. “So, you want to tell me who this mysterious person whom you’re pining for is?” he asked, fully expecting resistance, and wasn’t surprised when Wei Wuxian shook his head. “Please? I won’t tell them, I promise,” he said, aiming to be lighthearted with it. He didn’t expect Wei Wuxian to huff out a laugh, but he was going to take whatever he could. “A-Cheng. I told him to not go to Lotus Pier. And he brought you too. Ahh, Lan Zhan,” he said, sighing in exasperation. “He loves you, you know,” Jiang Cheng said, swallowing. Wei Wuxian turned his eyes to him. “He loves you more than the sun itself. He told me so, back in Lotus Pier. He considers you to be the sun in his life,” he said, figuring that even if it was a thing Lan Wangji had told him in confidence, it was also a thing he wouldn’t mind Jiang Cheng telling his husband, either. “He cares for you a lot, and that’s why he came to Lotus Pier, to seek the help of other people who care for you too,” Jiang Cheng said, as all the words and emotions ached in his chest. Wei Wuxian let out a breath and swallowed thickly, swallowing down some more petals, most likely. “I love him too. So much. But,” he began slowly, and Jiang Cheng’s heart stuttered in his chest, hoping that he would continue. Instead, he coughed. Jiang Cheng helped him with the second batch of petals he expelled, and Wei Wuxian’s breathing was far more ragged than ever before. “I can’t. I can’t tell you who it is, A-Cheng,” he said, his voice coming to a weak whisper at the end with his name. “Why? Why not?” Jiang Cheng asked in a whispered rush. Wei Wuxian simply pressed his lips together and shook his head, before immediately releasing his lips and taking a gulp of air. Jiang Cheng despaired. He knew how stubborn the other man could be when he wanted to. Instead of asking him directly again, he asked Wei Wuxian to play a game with him. Each day, he would ask questions about this person, and each day, Wei Wuxian could give him a riddle, clue, or answer of some sort to his specific questions. Wei Wuxian was skeptical but agreed to play nonetheless, only after negotiating being allowed to refuse any one question he didn’t want to answer. Slowly, over the course of the week that Lan Wangji was away, frantically hunting Wen Qing down, Jiang Cheng gleaned that it was a man, that he was handsome, a strong cultivator, came from a good and wealthy family, and cared deeply for everyone around him even if he didn’t show it. His sister was one such person the man cared about, as was Wei Wuxian himself, and in the end, the information was largely unhelpful because almost everyone at Lotus Pier could potentially fit the description, except for those from poor families, the women and the non-cultivators. Which still left over half of the disciples, and nothing else he asked was helping to narrow it down. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he asked Wei Wuxian with narrowed eyes, and was met with a muted version of his mischievous smile as he shakily lifted his cup of warm honey tea (given to him by the Lan doctors to soothe his throat) to hide said smile behind it. Jiang Cheng huffed and rolled his eyes. Trust Wei Wuxian to literally be on his deathbed and still be stubborn as a mule and mischievous as a spirit. Wei Wuxian’s condition had rapidly deteriorated before Jiang Cheng’s very eyes. It got to the point that the doctors would visit multiple times a day and Wei Wuxian spent most of his time sleeping as his body desperately battled to keep him alive. Lan Wangji didn’t show up for the entire week, and sent a message from Qinghe that he was going to search Qishan next, since Wen Qing wasn’t in Yiling or Dafan, and he had heard that she had gone to Qishan to help the few doctors there to treat the seasonal sickness that came around every year, which had been particularly strong this year. Jiang Cheng hoped to the heavens that he would return soon, and started laying down the groundwork by telling him the story about Wen Qing burning out the poison from within him, hoping that it would jog Wei Wuxian’s brilliant brain into coming up with an idea that he could eventually guide down the path of burning the flowers- he’d be more willing to try it if he thought he’d come up with the idea himself, after all. “I could burn the flowers out but leave the roots intact,” Wei Wuxian rasped, three days later, when Lan Wangji had sent a Jin messenger butterfly borrowed from his brother before he left, informing him of having found Wen Qing and heading straight back to Gusu as quickly as they could. “Like how the poison got burned out of me?” he asked, and Wei Wuxian nodded. “We could try that, it’d let you breathe at least, right? If the flowers weren’t in the way,” he thought out loud. Wei Wuxian nodded, and then turned his big, watery eyes towards Jiang Cheng. “You’ll help me?” he asked, and Jiang Cheng had to bite back the urge to cup the man’s face and promise him the world. Instead, he nodded and took both of Wei Wuxian’s too-skinny hands in his own. “Anything,” he said, and Wei Wuxian tried to swallow another bout of petals and almost choked on them. *** Disaster struck the very next day. One of the pearl merchants had heard about Jiang Cheng being in the Cloud Recesses, and since he’d been on his way to petition Sect Leader Lan about giving his latest shipment an escort past a haunted cemetery on Gusu lands, he decided to come and visit Jiang Cheng and show him some of the newest pearls of the same shipment that was going to go to Yunmeng for his appraisal for Jiang Yanli’s wedding anyway. Jiang Cheng received him in one of the receiving halls, and when he returned, Wei Wuxian asked about where he’d been. Jiang Cheng had unsuspectingly told him about meeting with the pearl merchant to appraise the newest shipment of pearls before it was sent to Yunmeng to be made into all of the various wedding jewellery and hairpieces. He hadn’t been expecting anything more than curious questions from Wei Wuxian. He certainly hadn’t expected this. Wei Wuxian’s coughing started out as normal, or rather, as similar to the way the rest of his coughing sounded, and Jiang Cheng dashed around the Jingshi with the bucket to help him, as he always did. But then Wei Wuxian started choking, and that was not normal for him. Jiang Cheng dropped the bucket and tried to scoop up Wei Wuxian to sprint with him to the Healing Pavilion, but Wei Wuxian tumbled out of the bed before he could. He dropped to his knees and placed his fingertips over Wei Wuxian’s throat, summoning up the qi to burn the flowers away, when Wei Wuxian, collapsed onto all fours, and grabbed his wrist with one hand. “A-Xian!” he hissed, not wanting him to get hurt. “Don’t,” he said. “A-Xian! You’re choking, you can’t breathe, I have to!” he said urgently. “No!” Wei Wuxian managed to gasp out. “A-Xian! Please let me help you!” he begged, uncaring that there was now a flood of frustrated tears building up behind his eyes. “Too late,” Wei Wuxian gasped out. “Tell me who it is, then,” Jiang Cheng begged. “Please. A-Xian, please. Confess. Let me burn it out. Please,” he begged, letting the fear-desperation-love bleed into his voice and the tears breach his eyes. “Please!” he begged again, putting his face close to Wei Wuxian’s teary-eyed one, and watching as he mouthed Jiang Cheng’s name. Jiang Cheng wasted no time and sent a searing surge of qi through his fingertips, expertly burning some of the flowers away. Wei Wuxian spasmed and gasped in pain, his grip on Jiang Cheng’s wrist starting to hurt with how desperately tight he was now holding onto it. Wei Wuxian took in a desperate gasp and Jiang Cheng stopped the flow of qi, letting Wei Wuxian pant and pant until he was no longer as lightheaded as he was before. “A-Cheng,” he said, voice completely wrecked, and Jiang Cheng sent in a tendril of qi to gently probe and heal the bruising in Wei Wuxian’s throat, only to be met with the resistance of a giant lotus bud that was rapidly growing in his windpipe. “A-Cheng, it’s too late. Please,” Wei Wuixan begged.“No!” Jiang Cheng snarled and bundled Wei Wuxian into his arms. “Tell me who it is, please,” he begged again, not realising that tears were flowing down his eyes until Wei Wuxian whispered very softly to him. “Don’t cry, A-Cheng, ‘M sorry.”“If you’re sorry you’ll tell me. Please,” he begged, sniffing and refusing to give up, refusing to give in to the siren pull of wanting to confess to Wei Wuxian that he loved him and would go to the ends of the earth for him if only Wei Wuxian could keep on living. Wei Wuxian took in a wracking, shuddering breath and smacked his lips, though he didn't say anything. “Please,” Jiang Cheng begged again, the tears flowing freely of their own accord. “...you,” Wei Wuxian said, looking pained, and draw in a rattling, shuddering breath as the lotus bud no doubt grew bigger. “You,” Wei Wuxian breathed, and Jiang Cheng’s eyes were wide in shock. It felt like his heart had stopped, like the world had stopped, like… “You, A-Cheng. But.. can’t-” Wei Wuxian continued in a rush. “You… getting… married. Can’t-” Wei Wuxian said breathlessly as the lotus grew large enough for Jiang Cheng to start to see the bulge of it appear in the upper part of Wei Wuxian’s neck. “Can’t love you… m’ sorry,” Wei Wuixan said with his last breath, and Jiang Cheng cried out in anguish. In a moment of desperation, he reached out and shoved his hand into Wei Wuxian’s open mouth as the lotus bud erupted out of his throat and burst into bloom in his mouth. Jiang Cheng grabbed the lotus bud by the stem and pulled as hard as he could. Once, twice, thrice he pulled, and on the third pull, he sent another searing surge of qi through the lotus itself, burning it up from the inside out. He was not going to lose Wei Wuxian. Not today. Not to this. Not when- He coughed and brute-forced his qi into the lotus again, pulling with all his might, willing his qi to sink down into Wei Wuxian’s lungs and destroy the lotus from its very roots. Wei Wuxian made a choking sound as the lotus gave way, and Jiang Cheng pulled it smoothly out of Wei Wuxian’s throat with as much ease as he could. The mangled, charred tendrils of what had once been a lotus root clung to the ends of the long stem. Jiang Cheng was quick to toss it away, but not quick enough to stop Wei Wuxian from toppling sideways onto the petal-covered floor. “A-Xian! A-Xian!” Jiang Cheng called frantically as he checked on Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian’s lips were still blue, but he was breathing at the very least. Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure if he was conscious or not, but he was taking in huge, shuddery, painfully desperate gasps of air. Jiang Cheng wasted no time at all and pressed his palm to Wei Wuxian’s beautiful neck and sent a surge of qi through him again, burning his throat and lungs free from any more flowers, petals, roots and stems. Never again would Wei Wuixan almost die in his arms like this. Never again would Jiang Cheng have to awake from a light slumber on the other side of the privacy screen in the Jingshi and rush over to find Wei Wuxian struggling to breathe before he awoke enough to expel all the petals. Never again. He used his qi to soothe the burn that no doubt was extremely painful for him, and was still doing so when the Jingshi door opened, and hurried footsteps rushed in. “Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji gasped, hurrying over and dropping to his knees, making Jiang Cheng look up, tears still in his eyes to blink at the devastated gold ones. Lan Wangji gasped. “He…” he said, turning to reach out and press his fingers to Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, then sliding his hands down to press against his chest, which was moving largely and rapidly as his body sought all the air it had been missing. “He loved me,” Jiang Cheng breathed out. Lan Wangji snapped his gaze to him. “He couldn’t tell either of us who he was in love with because it was me,” Jiang Cheng said numbly, feeling the grief as heavy in his heart as when he’d had to bury his parents after they’d successfully defended Lotus Pier with their lives. Sure, Wei Wuxian was alive, but everyone knew that ripping out the flowers would also rip out the person’s love- at least, the romantic love- and that was as good as him being dead, wasn’t it? Because if Wei Wuxian had loved him for as long as he had, then all of their interactions would never, ever be the same if Wei Wuxian had been doing what he did and saying what he said from love. Jiang Cheng would never be able to interact with the same Wei Wuxian ever again in his life, because that Wei Wuxian had died when he’d ripped the lotus out of his lungs and burned the roots of the rest of it. Wen Qing was there, crouching in front of Wei Wuxian, and there were other people there too, bustling around them, pulling him and Lan Wangji to his feet, and he found himself standing with the other man on the Jingshi porch. “He loved me this whole time, and I could have saved us both by not being a coward all this time and all this could have been avoided and-” Jiang Cheng gasped out loud in a numbly dazed rush. “Jiang Cheng?” Lan Wangji asked, and the man’s grip on his elbows was the thing that brought Jiang Cheng out of the stupor enough to blink at him. “He said that I was the one he had Hanahaki for,” Jiang Cheng told the man, and felt his hands tighten on his elbows as his eyes lit up in painful understanding. “That was why he kept asking about a wedding in Lotus Pier,” Lan Wangji said, “you never announced who it was for.”“And he walked in on me being draped by the fabric merchant because he was too shy to approach and drape A-Jie directly and I got roped into helping,” Jiang Cheng said as it suddenly occurred to him- “Wei Wuxian thought I was the one getting married,” he breathed as the realisation washed over him. “That’s why it started after we got married,” Lan Wangji said quietly. “He heard from the pearl merchants that you were planning a wedding, but not for whom, and when he saw you…”“He assumed it was me getting married, because Jin Zixuan wasn’t there that week and A-Jie hadn’t yet had the chance to tell him about the courtship because he cut that trip short and then he never returned because he got sick,” Jiang Cheng continued. “I…” Jiang Cheng started, then swallowed, and tried his hardest not to cry. He failed when, only a moment later, Lan Wangji’s strong, muscular arms gently wrapped around him, much to his surprise.“I thought you don’t like touching,” Jiang Cheng asked between sobs. “I don’t like touching strangers,” Lan Wangji said, his voice warm and rumbly against Jiang Cheng’s ears and his sandalwood scent engulfing him. “Hugging a friend is a different story entirely,” he continued, and Jiang Cheng erupted into more quiet sobs at this. This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jiang Cheng tentatively entered the Jingshi’s bedroom, heart hammering in his throat the entire time. Wei Wuxian was awake, sitting up in bed supported by a mountain of pillows, clearly exhausted and slightly sweaty. He was pale, but no longer trembling and his breaths were no longer accompanied by the wet choking sounds they otherwise would have been. He already looked remarkedly better than he had when Jiang Cheng has first rushed to Gusu and laid eyes on him. It was good. It was good that he was visibly doing better already. Jiang Cheng wanted to crumple to the floor in relief and grief and simultaneously scream out to the heavens that everything had been in vain, that all of this had been pointless if only he’d just talked to the man before… before... “A-Cheng?” Wei Wuxian rasped, throat sore and itchy. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. I’m right here,” he breathed, feet carrying him to Wei Wuxian’s bedside without conscious thought. “You came to visit me,” Wei Wuxian rasped. Jiang Cheng winced. “You shouldn’t talk, A-Xian. You’ve been ordered not to by Wen Qing, and she’s too scary to not listen to,” he said instead. Wei Wuxian pouted and then reached out to pat the spot on the bed for Jiang Cheng to sit on, and he found himself obeying without thinking. “How are you feeling?” he asked. Wei Wuxian blinked at him for a moment, as if trying to place him, before smiling. “Feel like shit, A-Cheng. But I’m supposed to be better than before. They won’t say why though,” Wei Wuxian managed, before his breath caught. Jiang Cheng’s heart leapt into his throat again and he quickly reached out for the talisman-warmed cup on Wei Wuxian’s bedside and fed him the medicinal tea to soothe his throat, as he’d been advised to do. “Don’t talk! Please don’t talk anymore,” he said as Wei Wuxian pulled his full lips back from the rim of the cup. Those lips turned up in a teasing grin; Jiang Cheng raised his eyes to meet mischievous grey ones. “You’ve always said that to me, haven’t you?” he rasped. Jiang Cheng huffed. Trust Wei Wuxian to joke around even in a situation like this. “Well. You are very loud sometimes. Lotus Pier is legitimately quieter without you in it, even though everyone else is also loud there now- all thanks to you telling all the shidis and shimeis to make mischief in your stead,” he said, aiming for levity and trying to hide his emotions- they were not welcomed here anymore.He was far too late for that now, later than he’d ever been for anything in his entire life. He’d lost his chance forever, and his feelings would never be welcomed here ever again. Wei Wuxian smirked before reaching out a solid, non-trembling hand to guide the cup still held in front of him in Jiang Cheng’s hand closer to his mouth to take another sip. “Taught them well,” he said, and Jiang Cheng swallowed and put the cup back. “You did, they are so unruly- just like you,” Jiang Cheng admitted, and looked up to see Wei Wuxian’s reaction, only to be met with a flicker in his face, as if he was confused about something. With his lotus removed, he would forget all about, and no longer feel the love he had for Jiang Cheng, sure. However, he had remembered Jiang Cheng himself, so he clearly hadn’t been erased from his memories entirely either, as would sometimes happen. Perhaps he and Wei Wuxian had been so intertwined together that even if the love was removed, they’d still be close enough to have many memories about this- Wei Wuxian clearly remembered his wedding, and teasing him about the mischief-making he’d instructed their disciples, after all. “You had Hanahaki,” he said instead, not wanting to hide it from him and watching Wei Wuxian widen his eyes in shock. “Who?” he croaked. Jiang Cheng swallowed and let his eyes lower to the mole beneath Wei Wuxian’s lips. “Someone from Lotus Pier,” he answered instead. “Name?” he managed. Jiang Cheng just shook his head and looked down at the bruises on Wei Wuxian’s neck instead. Wei Wuxian reached out and gently touched his fingertips to Jiang Cheng’s hand, prompting him to look first down at the contact and then up at Wei Wuxian’s face. “Who?” he asked again quietly. Jiang Cheng swallowed, and then swallowed again. “You never said, and I had to pull the lotus out of your throat so you won’t remember either,” he whispered, looking back down and hoping his ever-perceptive former Head Disciple wouldn’t notice. Wei Wuxian’s other hand came up to gently touch his neck. “Thank you, A-Cheng. You saved me,” he said, and Jiang Cheng looked up to meet Wei Wuxian’s grateful, teary eyes. “It was Lan Wangji who came to me to ask for help, and he was the one who hunted Wen Qing down to repair the damage to your lungs. He did more than I did,” Jiang Cheng said, swallowing again. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian sighed, letting go of his neck and flopping back into the pillows before biting his lip. “What’s wrong?” “He’s my husband. I didn’t have Hanahaki for him,” Wei Wuxian said, and Jiang Cheng found himself automatically picking up and holding Wei Wuxian’s hand in his own. “He understands. Really, he does. He’s just happy to have you safe and alive. As am I,” he said, forcefully swallowing again as his heart thumped in his chest.He lowered his gaze to Wei Wuxian’s neck bruises instead of his face. It was easier this way. “He said that you are the sun of his life. He loves you so, so much,” Jiang Cheng said, voice breaking at the end. “It would upset everyone if you had succumbed to it,” he said instead, “but it would have absolutely destroyed him if he lost you.” It wasn’t a lie. Neither he nor Lan Wangji had been able to sleep that night, and under the cover of the darkness of the Jingshi’s main room where they shared bedrolls, Lan Wangji had turned to him and whispered a confession about how it would have broken him to have to watch Wei Wuxian die in front of him if he’d been alone here today. How he wouldn’t have thought about pulling out the lotus, or burning the rest of it out, or had the strength to even do it in the first place, as Jiang Cheng had done. “You are a braver man than I ever have been and I owe you my life itself for saving the reason my heart still beats intact today,” he had said, and Jiang Cheng could hear the tears in his voice. “I saved him because my sister would be devastated that he wouldn’t be able to attend her wedding, because he is family to us,” Jiang Cheng said, trying to inject some levity into his answer while avoiding feeling uncomfortable at such emotions front he otherwise usually stoic Lan.He didn’t know how to comfort him beyond hugs and banter and teasing. Then again, he had told Lan Wangji the truth and hadn’t received the man’s rightful ire either, so perhaps he could try. “He’s the unruly spirit of mischief and chaos of Lotus Pier, and he needs to be well enough to bring that chaos here to Gusu as well. You Lans could use some of it. It’s only fair, after all,” he said, reaching out to gently place his hand on top of Lan Wangji’s. Lan Wangji huffed wetly and shuffled closer by the tiniest bit. “He promised me he’d give Shufu at least three grey hairs,” Lan Wangji said, voice still wet and teary. After a moment of silence, he whispered, “Wei Ying doesn’t know that he’s already given Shufu all three, plus two more, from how worried he’s been with the Hanahaki.” Jiang Cheng swallowed, and rubbed his thumb twice gently over Lan Wangji’s long, slender fingers. “I can recommend you the hair dye A-Jie and I use, we’ve had grey hairs over worrying about him since we were young,” he joked. “I’ll take you up on that if you promise to help me apply some for myself as well,” Lan Wangji said, relaxing the most he’d been able to that night, and Jiang Cheng huffed out a laugh as he nodded. They’d lain there in the silence, meditating and keeping an ear open for the sound of Wei Wuxian’s breathing, sounding blessedly clear and unobstructed throughout the night. *** “A-Cheng’s a good shidi. A good sect leader too, to come all the way here and check up on me like this. Crab with a tofu heart,” Wei Wuxian was saying, voice rasping painfully, yet still with a smile on his face that was soft and touched. The smile was all wrong, though- it was completely devoid of the complete and utter fondness that Wei Wuxian would have otherwise looked at him with, and Jiang Cheng had swallowed down the tangled rush of his emotions as he felt his eyes grow wet. It hurt to see. It felt like he was talking to a stranger, but not quite. Everything was wrongly off kilter for him and it was enough to make him suddenly, abruptly feel sick. He wanted to puke. He wanted to sob. He wanted to crawl onto Wei Wuxian’s lap and- Jiang Cheng knew he couldn’t stay here even a second longer. “I’ll be back!” he said as he abruptly stood up and fled the room. Lan Wangji was sitting in the living room with a tea set in front of him and was carefully mixing spices for the throat-soothing tea in his small stone mortar and pestle. He looked up immediately when Jiang Cheng practically stumbled out of the bedroom and was on his feet in a second after seeing Jiang Cheng’s face. He opened his mouth to say something but found his words trapped in his throat. Lan Wangji carefully observed Jiang Cheng, gazing into his eyes for a moment before gently pulling him into yet another wholly unexpected but otherwise really nice and much-needed hug. “Thank you,” he whispered in Jiang Cheng’s ear. Jiang Cheng slid his arms around Lan Wangji’s strong, sturdy body and pulled him close into a deep hug, swallowing yet again even as he shook his head. There was so much he wanted to say, but his throat hurt and he knew he’d never be able to speak past the lump in it anyway. “I have to go,” he whispered instead. Lan Wangji pulled back, concern written in the small furrow of his eyebrows. “I need to go back now,” he said, stepping back and out of Lan Wangji’s sturdy arms. “Why?” he asked. “B-because… A-Jie. She needs to see him. That he’s okay. I need to bring her. In person,” he said, swallowing as he backed up and then bowed hastily before turning on his heel and rushing out, barely managing to grab Sandu from the sword rack by the door. It was only half a lie. A-Jie needed to be told Wei Wuxian was okay and she’d definitely want to be brought here to see him as soon as was humanely possible, but that wasn’t the main reason why he needed to leave. Wei Wuxian was alive and on his way to recovery. The price for his survival was the subtle sense of distance he picked up between them. The loss of the tiny bits of utter fondness and warmth that no longer existed between him and Wei Wuxian, all of which had always existed between them no matter what- since they were small, since they’d fought for their home together, since they’d bonded and become friends and become more than that, with each one falling in love with each other without the other’s knowledge. It would be better if he left. Rather he put more distance between them and remember the version of Wei Wuxian that had apparently been in love with him this entire time, than to have his heart be broken by this new Wei Wuxian- one who didn’t remember enough about him to even call out his lies when he was the shittiest liar that Wei Wuxian could always catch out. He didn’t think his lies would work, but. He still had lied to him, for the sake of just… wiping the slate clean and letting Wei Wuxian live happily with his husband, the way it should be, with no Hanahaki in the way to spoil their relationship. He hopped onto his sword the second he was able to and flew straight and true to Yunmeng, his mind and heart in turmoil like the terrible outer edges of the worst of Yunmeng’s sea storms. Perhaps if he retreated, he might be able to find the calm within the storm, and perhaps that calm could come from the soothing touch of his sister's warmth- he suddenly missed her like he did during the year he’d gone to Gusu to study and had become terribly homesick towards the end and had started longing for the day he could go home to her. Besides, it was better to miss her when he was headed towards her than to feel the pain of having to leave his heart behind him in Gusu, shattered into as many petals as Wei Wuxian had coughed up yesterday. *** He had to stop by an inn halfway through his journey, not because it was growing dark or he was extra wobbly on his sword or anything, but because an unexpected downpour had forced him out of the sky and into a local inn- thankfully, it was still on Yunmeng soil, and the people had seen his robes, crown and sword and immediately had a room ready for him. He was forever thankful that his reputation as Sect Leader Jiang preceded him, leaving him with as little talking to be done- he didn’t think he could talk to anyone without sobbing, or breaking down, or- That night was one of the most vivid ones that would ever grace his memory. He remembers being unable to sleep, even with the soothing sound of the rain that lasted throughout most of the night. He remembers coughing and coughing with the force of his love, his grief, his regret as it all tumbled out of his chest and spilled, petal-light, across the floor of the darkened inn room. He remembers his hand at his throat as he reflexively sent searing qi through his throat and chest time and time again, reflexively burning out the flowers and stems that threatened to burst out of his lungs and bloom in his throat. He remembers there being so many petals, so many buds, so many times he burned and burned out the flowers in a desperate bid to stop them from choking him entirely, to allow him to keep breathing so he could return home to Lotus Pier and see his sister again and tell her that Wei Wuxian was going to live, unhindered by Hanahaki and- and- I’m going to die here, alone, drowning in petals in an inn somewhere on the outskirts of Yunmeng, aren’t I? He thought, with sudden, crystal-clear clarity as he gasped for air. There was a knock on the door. Most likely the inn workers had heard the sound of him vomiting and coughing out all the petals and had come to check in on him. He fumbled for his purse and pulled out a handful of money before using Sandu to help heave himself upright. He viciously burned the latest batch of flowers in his throat, took in as deep of a breath as he could and held it as he turned and barged out of the room, dropping the money in the hands of the surprised and concerned wife of the innkeeper and rushed outside past her. It was dawn and he flew as fast and hard as he could, one hand on his throat as he reflexively burned out all flower after flower as they burst into his throat almost quicker than he could burn them out, while his other hand was firmly clamped over his mouth to stop the petals from spilling out. One or two fragments of petals escaped his fingers as his mouth filled up, and he tried to burn the flowers in his mouth too, to no avail. In the distance, Lotus Pier appeared like a mirage out of the morning mists that shrouded it, and Jiang Cheng had never been more grateful to see his home before. If he could just hold on long enough to get to his sister… He rushed through, the wards opening and letting him pass without difficulty, and he was suddenly overrun by the flowers. All of the frantic flying whilst simultaneously burning up the flowers had depleted his core to a dangerously low level that would leave him with not enough qi left to burn out the roots of the flowers before they overrun him. Wen Qing was still in Gusu with Wei Wuxian. No one else knew about this, knew how to or even that the flowers of Hanahaki could be burned out instead of being removed from the roots. He had to be the one to burn the roots themselves. The sharp pain in his heart made him wobble on his sword again, as if his body itself was reacting to the very idea of forgetting that he’s ever loved Wei Wuxian. But what other choice did he have? He was a sect leader, his people needed him, and Wei Wuxian’s Hanahaki had been cured already, so he could and would at least live a happy life without him, and without Jiang Cheng pining and dying from it for him. His people needed him more now that Lan Wangji would be able to care for Wei Wuxian. His sister needed him- but if he died here and now, at least he had done his part and made every single preparation he could think of months in advance for her wedding. He flew over one of the courtyards in Lotus Pier and promptly tumbled off his sword as his body gave out. His knees hit the deck, very physically, and he found himself on all fours, coughing and coughing as the large lotus petals choked him. There was a shout. A familiar shout that sounded like Wei Wuxian. At least if I die now, I get to hear him shouting my name one last time, he thought. He had enough power for one last surge of qi that would hopefully burn out everything in his lungs once and for all. It was too late to do anything else now. He closed his eyes, thinking of Wei Wuxian’s bright smile, and felt his entire body burn as if it had caught on fire from the inside out. It was the single most painful thing he’d ever done in his entire life, including ripping out the lotus from Wei Wuxian’s lungs. *** He panted, finally able to breathe freely. The taste of lotus lingered in his mouth. There was a hand on his shoulder, and a voice talking to him. He knew that voice. He opened his eyes and was met with familiar teary grey ones. Wei Wuxian. He looked thin and haggard, but there was light in his eyes, and- oh yeah. That’s right. Wei Wuxian had gotten sick. “Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, like he was grieving, which made no sense. Why would he be grieving? (He had an inkling that it was his job to grieve, though he didn’t know why. It felt like the reason was at the tip of his tongue, yet he could not, for the life of him, name the reason). “Wei Wuxian,” he managed, and winced as his throat hurt worse than it ever had in his entire life and his voice sounded completely wrecked. “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, reaching out to pick a piece of petal off his chin. Jiang Cheng took his eyes off the (rather beautiful, he gotta say, even if he was entirely too skinny) man and took in the lotus petals surrounding him. It was easy to guess what had happened, what with the burn in his throat, the taste of lotus in his mouth and the petals scattered around him. “I had Hanahaki,” he wheezed, sitting up on his knees. Wei Wuxian clamped a hand over his mouth and nodded, fresh tears welling up in his eyes, making them look like a rather teary grey storm cloud. It was beautiful. It felt right for him to think of these eyes and this man as beautiful, though he couldn’t say why. He’d never thought of his unruly shixiong as being beautiful before, had he? Ah, but Wei Wuxian wasn’t his shixiong anymore. He was married now, into GusuLan. “Where’s Lan Wangji?” he rasped. “He’s gone to fetch Shijie and the Lotus Pier healers and also Wen Qing,” Wei Wuxian said, pressing gentle fingertips to Jiang Cheng’s throat. Jiang Cheng swallowed painfully. “Who?” he asked. “You never said,” Wei Wuxian said, shaking his head, looking anguished.“Why you here?” he managed past the agony in his throat. Suddenly, he felt warm, familiar tendrils of Wei Wuxian’s qi gently wash over his aching throat, soothing the burn of it to something more manageable. “I had Hanahaki too,” Wei Wuxian began quietly. Jiang Cheng’s eyes snapped to him. Wei Wuxian focused on his throat instead, not looking up to meet his eyes. “And then you came to Gusu to help me, and you saved my life by pulling the flowers out from the roots and burning out the rest of it.”Jiang Cheng swallowed on reflex. “Who?” he asked. Wei Wuxian lifted pained teary grey eyes to meet his own, and solemnly told him a single word that lit everything on fire and brought his entire world crashing down at his feet. “You.” Suddenly, Jiang Cheng remembered. “It was you, A-Cheng.” Jiang Cheng remembered the pain, the anguish, remembered pulling the lotus out of Wei Wuxian’s throat. “I thought you were the one getting married, not Shijie, and it made the Hanahaki worse than ever before.” Jiang Cheng remembered the inn, and frantically burning out the flowers on the way here. “I could manage it quite well before, when I was still living here. I only coughed up a petal one or twice during the wedding preparations, and so I thought I could grow out of it by marrying and loving Lan Zhan wholeheartedly.” He remembered that day in Yiling, when Wen Qing had thoroughly burned the poison out of him, and he could breathe freely again. He remembers her picking up on the lotus seed growing deep within his lungs that had become a sprout, that had become burned back into a seed with her qi. He had asked him if he wanted it to be gone forever, since it was small enough that she could burn it out then and there. He remembers declining, and her showing him how her fire cultivation worked to burn out poisons and flowers alike, in secret, never once betraying his confidence or even asking about who he was pining after. “But I was wrong, and Lan Zhan just spent the whole night telling me about you, and how much you loved me, and how suspicious he was that you also had Hanahaki from how quickly you knew to send him to Wen Qing and also how you knew how to burn the flowers out with qi, something that Wen Qing told me can only be done safely with fire cultivation techniques and that you’d done a good job of minimising the risk when you did it to me,” Wei Wuxian said, tears filling his eyes, and Jiang Cheng reached out and grabbed his arm. “It was you,” he said, because it made sense. Because it could only ever have been Wei Wuxian he’d fall in love with and have Hanahaki over. Because he remembered everything. Because he was pretty certain there was still a lotus seed buried deep within his lungs, ready to sprout again now that the fire was over- lotuses were resilient like that. “It was you I had Hanahaki for, Wei Wuxian,” he said, finally letting the confession cross his lips openly for the first time in his life. “I have always loved you for as long as I can remember and I always will.” “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, picking up one of Jiang Cheng’s hands and cradling it in both of his hands.Jiang Cheng turned to face him and lifted his other hand up to wipe away Wei Wuxian’s tears. “Do you remember getting Hanahaki for me?” he asked gently, because this was his Wei Wuxian in front of him, and not the stranger he’d met yesterday. “I do,” Wei Wuxian said nodding as he leaned into the hand on his cheek. “I coughed up a lotus petal today, and Lan Zhan said we should find you quickly and urged me to confess to you,” he said. “Lotuses are resilient like that,” Jiang Cheng said, feeling a petal tickle the back of his throat, before he turned and coughed it out. They watched it flutter between them, heavy with the weight of this thing, the love shared between them. “Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng began, mustering up the courage fuelled by almost losing the precious man in front of him, by losing the love for him, by the knowledge that they both were complete and utter fools in love and they could have avoided all of this by simply talking and being honest about their feelings towards each other. He took a deep breath and let the scent of the lotus petals around them fill up his lungs. “Wei Wuxian, I love you. I have always loved you for as long as I can remember. My love for you went from a simple, innocent childhood crush to this beautiful, wonderful, fiery thing that lit me up from the inside and gave me a reason to get up again each and every day and fight for a better life for both of us. We've been through hell and back, and I'd never have survived it without you by my side. Lan Wangji once described you as the sun in his life, and I have to say that you are the sun in my life too. I love you, I adore you, you make me want to be a better man, if only I can have you gracing me with the warmth of your smile again,” he said, the words rushing out and tumbling over themselves just to get out. “Please,’ he pleaded at the end, after a breath that was more of a gasp. “Please stay. Please stay with me. Here, by my side. Please. Even if we never marry, even if you remain as loyal to your husband as he deserves,” Jiang Cheng said, hearing quiet footsteps approach them from the entrance to the courtyard. “Please stay at home with me. Here, at Lotus Pier. Even if you have to leave to go nighthunting or back to Gusu or wherever- please come back to me. Stay here with me. Please. Wei Ying,” he begged, not caring who was witnessing this, not caring of anything at all except Wei Wuxian's soft, tear-damp cheek beneath his thumb as he rubbed it gently back and forth in a soothing gesture. He was unsure of just who he was soothing, Wei Wuxian or himself. Wei Wuxian nodded, and shuffled closer before pulling him on for a hug.“Oh A-Cheng,” he said, before sobbing against his shoulder. Jiang Cheng pulled him into his lap and held him close, hugging him as tightly as he dared. “Please just stay,” Jiang Cheng said, his own face wet with tears as he tucked his face against Wei Wuxian's and breathed in the scent of Wei Wuxian, of lotuses and spice and something else that was entirely unique to him; the smell of home. Footsteps sounded on the wood, muffled by the petals, and Jiang Cheng opened his eyes and saw white boots and light blue robes, with a red tassel and lotus-shaped bead hanging beneath a GusuLan jade token carved in the shape of clouds. He looked up, following the tassel up and up, until his eyes landed on Lan Wangji's serene face. “We will stay,” he said, eyes warm and relieved, and Jiang Cheng swallowed thickly. “We will stay here with you at Lotus Pier instead of Gusu,” he said, before Jiang Cheng could open his mouth to say anything else. “Wei Ying has enough love in his heart for both of us,” he said, causing Wei Wuxian to pull back and turn around to look at him with the same shock-incredulity-hope that was filling up Jiang Cheng's chest. Lan Wangji crouched down and cupped Wei Wuxian’s head with both hands. “Wei Ying. If you wish to be with Jiang Cheng, I give you my blessing. You are my husband. I love you. Nothing will change that. Your heart is big enough for both of us, so you can have both of us. I will not make you choose. I would rather you be alive and happy and healthy with someone else as well, than to have you suffer in silence like that or risk losing you because you can't express the soul-deep love you have for another,” he said gently. “Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian said, sounding overwhelmed and teary. Lan Wangji brought him in for a kiss, and to his surprise, Jiang Cheng found that he wasn't jealous in the slightest bit. They made a good couple, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, and he was glad they had each other. Glad, too, that he was getting the opportunity to call Wei Wuxian his also. Lan Wangji gently slid his hands off Wei Wuxian's face and let the beautiful man turn to face Jiang Cheng once again, this time with a radiant smile on his face. Jiang Cheng cupped his face again, this time with both hands like Lan Wangji had, and looked once at the man in askance. Lan Wangji placed his hand on Jiang Cheng's shoulder and squeezed while nodding. “He’s our reckless, unruly idiot and we'll both love him together,” he said, echoing Jiang Cheng's words from earlier. Jiang Cheng huffed a laugh despite himself, whispered a heartfelt “thank you” to him and turned back to Wei Wuxian, who had made a small, indignant squawk that Jiang Cheng laughed at before kissing the rest of his dramatic protests about the two of them ganging up on him off his beautiful, plump lips, at long last. “I'll stay,” Wei Wuxian murmured between kisses. “A-Cheng. I'll stay here, at home with you.”“Lotus Pier has always been and will always be your home, A-Xian, my love,” Jiang Cheng said, feeling the love, and warmth, and happiness expand within him like a sun exploding into being. His sister and the Jiang doctors rushed into the courtyard along with several disciples. They must look a sight, half buried beneath mushy lotus petals, tearstained and smiling like idiots, but he didn't care. He pulled Wei Wuxian into his lap again and held him close, closing his eyes and tucking his chin over the beautiful man's head, feeling at peace for the first time in a long time with his arms wrapped around the warm weight of the man he loved and the man's husband, a friend, his friend, by his side while his sister crouched down next to them and engulfed both of them into another hug. This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jiang Cheng coughed one last time and stared numbly at the petals in the bottom of the bucket he was knelt over. “A-Cheng! A-Cheng! Come on, fifth shidi already took the juniors to the cliffs to set up the kites!” Wei Wuxian said, bursting into the room and laughingly draping himself all over Jiang Cheng’s back. His laugh abruptly died down as he looked down into the bucket, before reaching out and gently picking up a deep blue petal.“Are these gentian petals?” he asked, rubbing the deep blue petal between gentle fingers.“I should talk to your husband about this,” Jiang Cheng said, not taking his eyes off the mass of petals at the bottom of the bucket.“A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, softly and sadly.Jiang Cheng’s heart squeezed in his chest.“I’m sorry, A-Xian. I didn’t mean to. He’s your husband, I know. And he’s loyal to you too,” he said, equally softly.“But I have to talk to him about this. Even if my feelings aren’t returned. We all saw what happened when we didn’t do this the first time. I almost lost you. We both almost did. I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, A-Xian,” he continued, before swallowing down his fear. “A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said softly, dropping the petal and sliding off his back to crouch next to him. Jiang Cheng watched the petal flutter until it reached the bottom before he turned to face Wei Wuxian. “You’ve always had a heart as big as mine, A-Cheng. You’ve just always hidden that beneath several layers of grumpiness. Like a crab. It makes sense that it’d be him that you come to love next- I always told you he was loveable, didn’t I?” he said, reaching out and cupping Jiang Cheng’s face for a moment. “That’s the politest way you’ve ever said ‘I told you so’ to be ever in my entire life,” Jiang Cheng tried to joke.Wei Wuxian chuckled.“Yeah, well. Sometimes I can be nice too, you know,” he said, smiling softly before gently grabbing one of Jiang Cheng’s hands and tugging it off the edge of the bucket.“Let's go. The rest of the disciples are gone to shoot kites, so we can talk to him privately from anywhere in Lotus Cove,” he said, standing up and tugging Jiang Cheng’s arm up.Jiang Cheng sighed.“Yeah, okay. Let’s go find that beautiful husband of yours. Might as well. The sooner the better and all that,” he grumbled as he let Wei Wuxian help to heave him up to his feet, and then grab his wrist and tow him out of the room in search of Lan Wangji. *** There was a lotus petal on the wooden floor of the pier, which wouldn’t have been too unusual, given that Lotus Cove and Lotus Pier were surrounded by lotus ponds everywhere. But. It was only the beginning of spring, with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having stayed here at Lotus Pier over the autumn and winter months, and so none of the lotuses were blooming yet nor had they had the chance to shed their petals either, which only happened at the end of their bloom. They walked along and found another, and another, like a trail leading further down the pier, and then heard the sound of a familiar voice coughing from ahead. Jiang Cheng’s heart squeezed in his throat and Wei Wuxian’s hand squeezed his wrist and they looked at each other for a single moment before breaking into a run. At the end of the pier stood Lan Wangji, clutching the railing and hunched over. At the sound of their footsteps, he wordlessly turned around, eyes wide in fear, and both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s eyes zeroed in on the mass of large purple lotus petals in the hand he’d just been holding his mouth with. Jiang Cheng swallowed down the run of emotions that surged up at the sight of a vulnerably scared Lan Wangji, who didn’t even try to say anything and just stood there, knowing he’d been caught. The man reminded him of a startled deer in this moment, and he longed to wrap his arms around the man and hold him close. “Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked.“Wei Ying, I…” he said, voice hoarse as he looked helplessly at his husband.“Is that really for…” Wei Wuxian asked as he walked towards him, forcing Jiang Cheng to walk forward with him, which he did with numb legs.“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said softly, his eyes darting from Wei Wuxian to Jiang Cheng and back to his husband, before he nodded, once, and kept his eyes downcast. Jiang Cheng’s chest swelled with a burst. He marched over and reached out to slip his hand behind Lan Wangji’s head and thread his fingers through the man’s silky soft hair, making him look up at him in surprise.Before he could say anything, Jiang Cheng gripped tightly onto his hair and pulled him in, pressing their lips together in a kiss. Lan Wangji was still for a single, breathless moment, before he made a soft sound and practically melted against Jiang Cheng’s body, with both of his hands coming up to clutch at Jiang Cheng’s robes, regardless of one of them being filled with petals. Jiang Cheng felt Wei Wuxian’s grip on his wrist ease up and brought that hand to wrap around Lan Wangji’s perfect waist and pull him in even closer. He pulled back for air and pressed his forehead against Lan Wangji’s as they both panted together. Wei Wuxian’s warm hands were gently placed on the small of both of their backs in support. “Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji began breathlessly, “Jiang Cheng. You.”“I coughed up deep blue gentian petals today,” Jiang Cheng said as he pulled back enough to let him look into those warm molten gold eyes. Lan Wangji’s eyes were always so expressive once one knew how to read them. His eyes had widened a fraction, just enough to express how surprised he was by this.“You mean…” he trailed off as his eyes flicked down to let him look at Jiang Cheng’s mouth.“Wei Wuxian told me about your favourite flower being the deep blue gentians that grow in the back mountains of Gusu. It can only mean one thing,” he said, heart hammering in his chest as he looked at Lan Wangji, who was even more beautiful up close like this. “I learned from the mistake of the past, to not keep these things bottled up like this, that’s why I’m telling you this,” he continued.“It is selfish,” Lan Wangji said, eyes darting to Wei Wuxian and back to him again.“It is not, not any more than Wei Wuxian having two husbands is,” Jiang Cheng said. Lan Wangji swallowed and blinked back a sudden wetness in his eyes. “You, truly?” he asked.“I wouldn’t have kissed you I didn’t, Lan Zhan,” he said.“Jiang Cheng,” Lan Wangji said, with too much emotion in his voice. And then they were kissing again, and Jiang Cheng swiped his tongue into Lan Wangji’s and pilfered a broken piece of lotus petal that was stuck to the inside of his cheek, and found that Lan Wangji shivered whenever he did this. “Let's talk it out, the three of us,” Jiang Cheng said eventually, when Lan Wangji was panting and beautifully flushed from where had found himself being pushed up against the railing.“I agree,” Wei Wuxian chimed in from next to them, his lip red and bitten from where he had been watching them kiss from next to them. Lan Wangji nodded and clutched at Jiang Cheng’s robes, too breathless to talk, and Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng huffed a laugh at him before being unable to resist pulling him in for yet another kiss as the breeze gently played with their hair. The clarity bell on Lan Wangji’s belt, which Jiang Cheng had put on for the man himself a few months ago, chimed once with the wind.
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